The Family Doctor __________________________ A full-length play By Steven Lehrer Contact: Steven Lehrer 30 West 60th Street 5M New York, New York 10023 Phone 212 765 7132 [email protected] http://stevenlehrer.com CAST DR. EDUARD BLOCH is a short heavy set older man, stocky, with a walrus moustache twisted at both ends and wavy grey hair. He wears a stiff white collar, a vest, a perky silk bow tie, and double cuffs. His appearance is old world Habsburg. KLARA HITLER is 47 years old, an intelligent, modest, kindly woman, sad and careworn in Act I but quite sexy in Dr. Bloch’s Act II dream. She is tall, with brownish hair, which she keeps neatly plaited, and an oval face with large expressive eyes. ADOLF HITLER, her only son, is eighteen years old in Act I, with a long pale face and a wispy moustache which covers most of his upper lip. In Act II he is the German Reich Chancellor Hitler familiar to us in photographs. ALOIS HITLER, Adolf’s father, is a huge, ugly, bewhiskered, hulking, powerful man, dressed in a customs officer’s uniform. The same actor plays PRIEST, DRILL SERGEANT, and PROFESSOR DR. DR. RASCH. LEO RAUBAL, Adolf’s brother in law, is a small, officious man in a well tailored suit. The same actor plays SHELTER OFFICIAL and Journalist RENATO ATTILLIO BLEIBTREU. ********************************* SYNOPSIS Dr. Eduard Bloch, a Jewish poor people’s doctor in Linz, Austria, cares for Adolf Hitler’s mother, Klara Hitler, as she dies a painful death from breast cancer in 1907. Three decades later, after he has annexed Austria to the German Reich, Hitler protects Bloch, and allows him to emigrate in 1940. But first, Bloch must turn over Klara Hitler’s medical record and two post cards Hitler sent him in 1907 and 1908. Bloch’s reluctance to comply almost costs him his life. In his white coat during Act I, Bloch is, under his sympathetic caring demeanor, every inch the successful, self-confident professional man who has accomplished something in life, in contrast to Adolf, who has failed. In Act II, without his white coat and his profession, Bloch is diminished. When he confronts the all powerful Hitler at the end of Act II, he is submissive, befuddled, confused. The two men have, in effect, exchanged roles. ******************************** TAGLINE: The story of the only Jew that Hitler protected from Hitler. 2. The entire action of the play takes place in Dr. Bloch’s Linz consulting room, Act I 1907, Act II 1938-1940. ACT I 1 SCENE 1 AT RISE: The stage is in darkness, except for a spotlight on Dr. Eduard Bloch, a short heavy set man in his late sixties, stocky, with a walrus moustache twisted at both ends and wavy grey hair. He wears a stiff white collar, a vest, a perky silk bow tie, and double cuffs. His appearance is old world Habsburg. He is seated in an easy chair in his Bronx apartment. He speaks to the audience as though he is talking to interviewers. DR. BLOCH (shaking his finger at audience) Don’t call me Herr Professor Doktor. I am not professor. I am an old Jewish doctor from Austria; a poor people’s doctor; a Linz medicaid provider retired to an obscure corner of the Bronx. I know you want to hear about Hitler. Why else would you come here: to climb up five flights of stairs? Believe me, you aren’t the first. Excuse me. (From a pitcher on a table next to his chair, he pours himself a glass of milk, which he sips as he speaks) Ulcers. They’ve been with me since my thirties. Like the Hitler family. Probably stomach cancer by now. 3. In my Linz office I always kept a pitcher of milk on my desk. (He sips more milk, then places the glass on table next to his chair.) In 1940, I was three days out of Lisbon, bound west for New York in a storm. The British found me. A little before eleven o'clock that night our ship, a small Spanish liner, Marques de Comillas, got orders to stop. British control officers aboard a trawler wanted to examine the passengers. Everyone lined up in the main lounge. Four British officers, wearing life jackets, entered. Grimly they worked their way down the line, examining passports. Everyone was frightened. Many people aboard the ship were fleeing for their lives. They thought they had escaped Europe. Now? No one knew. Perhaps some of us would be taken off the ship. Finally it was my turn. The officer in charge took my passport, glanced at it and looked up, smiling. “You were Hitler's doctor, weren’t you?” he asked. He was correct. I knew Adolf Hitler as a boy and a young man. I treated him for minor complaints. I was intimately familiar with the modest surroundings in which he grew up. In 1907, I attended his mother in her final illness. BLACKOUT. 2 SCENE 2 The lights come up on Dr. Bloch’s consulting room, which contains a regular examining table and a white metal gynecologic examining table with chrome stirrups. A medical bookshelf is in one corner. A white supply cabinet with glass doors is next to it. In the center of the room is a roll top desk, at which Dr. Bloch is seated. He wears a white coat and an air of self-confident professional authority. A full pitcher of milk and a glass sit in a corner of the desk. 4. A comfortably padded chair is at right of the desk. In the chair KLARA HITLER is seated. Klara is 47 years old, a simple, modest, kindly woman, sad and careworn. She is tall, with brownish hair, which she keeps neatly plaited, and a long, oval face with large expressive eyes. As Klara gives Dr. Bloch her medical history, he makes brief notes on a piece of foolscap paper in a folder. DR. BLOCH Frau Hitler, please tell me what troubles you. KLARA I’m having terrible pain in my breast, Herr Doktor Bloch. DR. BLOCH Which breast, please. KLARA The right. DR. BLOCH Is the pain awakening you at night? KLARA In the past few days the pain has been so awful I’ve hardly slept at all. DR. BLOCH Have you been ill before? KLARA No, I’ve been quite healthy, thank the dear Lord. DR. BLOCH How old are you? 5. KLARA Forty-seven. DR. BLOCH Tell me about your family. Do you come from Linz? KLARA I come from Spital. DR. BLOCH Spittal? The town near the Danube? KLARA That’s Spittal with two “t”s. Spittal an der Drau, Lower Austria. My Spital has one “t”. It’s a little village in the south of Upper Austria, about 200 kilometers from here. DR. BLOCH I must be more frugal with my “t”s. KLARA Not at all, Herr Doktor. DR. BLOCH Are you married? KLARA I am a widow. DR. BLOCH Please tell me about your husband. KLARA Alois was a customs official. I was his housekeeper. He married me after the death of his second wife. He died four years ago. DR. BLOCH How old was he? KLARA (thinks) Sixty-five. 6. DR. BLOCH Much older than you. KLARA Twenty-three years. DR. BLOCH What happened to his first two wives? KLARA They died. DR. BLOCH (writing) Cause of his death? KLARA (indifferent, matter of fact) One morning he went to an inn, had a glass of wine, and dropped dead. They said he had a lung hemorrhage. DR. BLOCH Did he have tuberculosis? KLARA He might have. There was tuberculosis in his family. DR. BLOCH Have you been pregnant? KLARA Six times. DR. BLOCH (writing) Living children? KLARA Two. My son Adolf is eighteen, my daughter Paula eleven. DR. BLOCH What happened to the others? 7. KLARA Two sons and a daughter died of diphtheria not long after they were born. Adolf’s younger brother, Edmund, died of measles when he was five years old. DR. BLOCH Frau Hitler, please pull the screen in front of you, remove your dress, sit on the examining table, and call me when you are ready. Klara stands, pulls a white rolling screen in a metal frame in front of the examining table, removes her dress and sits on the table. KLARA Bitte, Herr Doktor, I am ready. Dr. Bloch, stethoscope in hand, pulls away the screen. Klara, her bare back to the audience, is undressed to the waist. Bloch begins by tapping her chest, then listening with his stethoscope over both sides of her chest, front and back. DR. BLOCH Breathe in deeply...Breathe out...Say “E”...Say “E”. Bloch examines her breasts. The left is normal. When he palpates the right breast, a look of mild surprise passes over his face. DR. BLOCH Raise your hands above your head...Hold them in front of you. Hold them behind your head. Dr. Bloch feels the left armpit with the fingers of his right hand. Nothing. 8. Then he palpates the right armpit, where he spends a few moments. He looks grave. DR. BLOCH You may get dressed again, Frau Hitler. Dr. Bloch pulls the screen in front of Klara, goes to sink, washes hands, sits at his desk and continues writing. Klara, fully dressed, sits down in the padded chair next to the desk. KLARA Is it serious, Herr Doktor? DR. BLOCH (hesitates) We can treat you. You must have an operation. KLARA You will remove my breast? DR.